In the quest to catch violent perps, rape kits can be a key ally – but only if they're tested

He thought he had taken the only evidence that could connect him to the crime, but he was wrong. When she went to the hospital, the victim told a specially trained nurse that her assailant had used her cell phone.

The nurse swabbed the phone and obtained a sample of the perpetrator's DNA. It was tested and a match was found in the convicted offender database. He was charged with the crime.

Dunlap, the former police lieutenant who, as a consultant, is working to establish national standards for police training in dealing with sex crimes, says law enforcement needs enough personnel and time to investigate cold cases and complex rape investigations.

Sean Smuda

Nancy Dunlap, a former Minneapolis police lieutenant who supervised the sex crimes unit, says testing of DNA samples in rape cases is essential

As it stands now, she says, if a police officer is assigned a cold case on one day and the next day "a high-profile case comes in, the cold case sits."

Dunlap also would like to see more victim advocates from the Somali, Hmong, Latino, and Native American communities who understand the cultural context of the way women react to rape — and can help persuade them to report the crime.

"You'll never know if you have a serial rapist in your neighborhood," she says, "if nobody reports it and nobody has an exam."

Ultimately, Dunlap says, she'd like to see the county attorney or the state legislature mandate that all rape kits are tested. She views the aggressive pursuit of rapists as a way to halt myriad other crimes.

Dunlap says she told police officers who worked for her in the sex crimes unit that "these guys weren't just raping women or children. They were committing robberies, domestic assaults, narcotics violations.

"These guys, they're the bane of your existence out there and if we can put together a good rape case, they're going to go away for big time," she told the officers, who suddenly looked at the issue with fresh eyes. "They got it."

Sex crimes, like any other crime cannot be stopped. Cameras and cell phones and police and DNA labs can only record what happened but never prevent anything. The police are not here to protect you, they are here to write down what happened. You are on your own in this world and no police offficer on the planet can prevent crime from ahppening. Sad but true.

Sex crimes, like any other crime cannot be stopped. Cameras and cell phones and police and DNA labs can only record what happened but never prevent anything. The police are not here to protect you, they are here to write down what happened. You are on your own in this world and no police offficer on the planet can prevent crime from ahppening. Sad but true.

I remember hearing a teenage junkie bragging to me in front of her apartment about how the cops can't touch her. She wasn't nearly as arrogant at her arraignment. So - pubescent and libertarian rants against the concept of law not withstanding - we prevent crimes every day and will continue to do so.

We solve a lot of rapes - because rapists don't tend to be master criminals. But our greatest challenge right now is Libertarian Republicans who don't really see anything wrong with rape, but see much wrong with the processing of rape kits.

Personally, I can understand their concern. If we start processing every rape kit - it will be like a holocaust against the entire conservative movement. From the gun violence advocates to the evangelicals to the inbreeders - each right wing fringe would be trimmed, leaving nothing behind but ruined families, shuttered businesses, empty homes and an prison population unmanageable to the few of us left behind.

Every prison in the country has an entire section devoted to locking up sex offenders. Each day they spend in prison, is a day they're stopped.

Where you went wrong was in substituting how you FEEL with what you're EXPERIENCING. That happens a lot with anti-government psychos. No matter how many times you TELL them things like how the NSA doesn't give a fuck about their text messages, they just can't shake that FEELING that they're a victim of something.